From Ragged to Royal...Two sisters journey. Sept 2015

[disneyaddicted]

We drug our tired hind quarters to the bus. We had bus luck that day cause one was waiting for us. We had one thing on our minds at that time and it was food. We hadn't eaten since Tusker house. It's hard to eat when it's so hot out. More than anything I was craving a nice tall Disney refillable mug of Gold Canyon sweet tea with tons of ice, more ice than tea actually. So when the bus pulled up to AoA we headed to waves of flavor for some ok flavored grub. I will be honest, the food was tasty, the texture however was somewhat questionable at times. We ate there a handful of times throughout our stay and the only thing that still stands out in my mind was their pizza. I didn't get pizza that night, I know I ordered the burger and fries, Mayonnaise on the side, (for the fries of course.) I remember this because in my mind I was singing give me burger give me fries give me mayonnaise on the side to the tune of Metallicas Fuel for Fire song from their Reload album. What? Yes, I like Metallica. Bo ordered this.
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She also ate some of my fries with the Mayo on the side, because neither of us can resist Pommes Frites mit Mayonnaise. We finished our meals, refilled our mugs again and set out for the long walk to our room. I don't know if I mentioned our park bags, I will fill you in on this. Past trips we just carried a small cross body bag, just big enough to hold the important stuff, camera, glasses, wallet, phone, lip gloss. It's easy to do when your trips have all taken place in cooler weather. This trip we had backpacks cause we also needed room for our fans, water bottles, ponchos and umbrella, I also started carrying extra socks. Bo....her bag was the bag of tricks, "Whenever she gets in a fix she reaches into her bag of tricks." (if you grew up with Saturday cartoons in the late 70's, you should know that song) you'll see some of those tricks she pulled out of her bag in upcoming posts. Anyway my point is, yes I have one...my point is that since we had these big ole bags we were able to store our refillable mugs in them and that saved us time and energy when we would return from the parks, we always just cut through the food court to get some libations. ( no Bo, I'm not using a thesaurus, I know that word) So libation in hand we headed to our room
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Bo found this guy, never ever under estimate Bo's ability to find a frog or lizard or something else that would make me jump if it crossed my path. Mom tells stories of finding worms in Bo's pockets while doing laundry, of course they were always dried up by the time they were found. Thankfully Bo doesn't put critters in her pockets anymore.
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Bo and her shenanigans. She likes to stand with her nose to the door of elevators and hope that there are people on the other side when it opens, she does this coming and going, some times we both do it just for that extra element of surprise, if people are there when the door opens, we say nothing, just smile and step out of the elevator, for extra fun sometimes when Bo would step into the elevator that had people in it, she wouldn't turn around and face the door like a normal person, nope she stays facing them. It's very hard for me to not laugh when this happens.
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Anna and I.
Below was a total rotten sister move. Bo was trying to get pictures around the room and I had to make sure to get in the way of that, so in true little sister fashion.....I did. "Oops, I'm sorry, were you trying to get a picture of that?"
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And in true older sister fashion, she did the same thing to me, she didn't even pretend it was an accident, look at her face.
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So Shenanigans and photo bombings aside, it was a good day, a busy day, we were tired.
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We did go down to the pool for an hour. There are no pictures of that. We left our phones and everything else in the room. That one hour in the pool was our attempt to fix our tired legs and decompress before going to bed for the night. Our next park day was Epcot, we planned to open and close it. So till the next post....I don't know....just do what you need to do, but please come back...please...

 

[Steppesister]

You certainly did have a very long day. And you two crack me up as you have so much fun together. I agree, the pool is a great way to decompress and wind down before bed. Late night swims are da-bomb!

I"m actually kinda excited to try AoA's food. It keeps getting pretty good reviews. I know one day we're planning on getting a big pizza to take to the pool. Hey, if you're bored or have extra time, visit me over on my thread. We're having a lot of fun over there. On the PTR forum.

 

[disneyaddicted]

September 18. Day 5 of our trip, or our 4th park day. Epcot. We wanted to make rope drop so we made sure to be out the door and at the bus stop early. We stopped at the food court to fill our cups first and then were first in line for the bus. We got seats in the back. The bus filled up but it wasn't sardine packed.
[GALLERY=][/GALLERY]
It's not that I felt you wouldn't believe me if I didn't post a picture for proof, this picture itself was taken by Bo who was trying to get a picture of our bus driver. He was pretty cool and talked to us the whole trip to Epcot, he was just full of Disney fact knowledge and Bo was completely in awe of this.
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Her second attempt was much better. The drivers chatter made the trip go by faster. We debussed at Epcot and as soon as we got inside the park we headed to the first PP photographer we saw that did not have a long line.
[GALLERY=][/GALLERY]
The typical MO of a Disney tourist making rope drop is to run straight back to the E ticket ride and get in a few rides before the wait time gets too long. Typically that's what I do, but Bo and I had different plans. We were just going to wait for our FP time and avoid the rush to....you guessed it, Soarin. We being the cool gals we are went to Starbucks for some morning fuel.
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[GALLERY=][/GALLERY]

I got us a nice little table off in the corner while Bo went in to get our food and drinks. I got my usual very berry hibiscus tea. That's my Starbucks poison. Bo always did the ordering because honestly I could never remember the name of what she ordered, I never have and never will understand the long names given to drinks at Starbucks, or the ordering size process. I'm just not that coffee shop savy. My extent of ordering coffee is "I would like a medium vanilla ice coffee, thank you." And then I drive around to the window and pick up my McIce coffee. But at Starbucks it's a whole different language, Bo is like, "Yes, I would like an Ariana Grande non dairy whiplash frozen caramel frappe crappy mocha choca latte yaya." She's a pro. So we had our drinks and some kind of cinnamon bun to share.
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I needed to update facebook.
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The selfie I posted, not to cause jealousy or anything, I mean if people happened to get jealous that was not my intention, I'm all about sharing the dream.
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We drank slowly while going over our plans for that morning. We had a FP for Soarin at 10:25am. No rushing. We finished our drinks and then took the long way to the Land pavilion stopping to take pictures along the way. They were getting ready for Food and Wine Festival which got us excited because we were going to be there for the first day of it later in the trip. How can you not get excited for yummies? and I can't wait to tell ya'll about it.
I love all the water features and fountains around Epcot.
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According to the crowd level calendar, that day was supposed to be a bad day to visit Epcot but as you can see that was not the case, it was pretty slow there that morning.

Bo is a fast walker, she walks with a purpose, she doesn't rush she just walks fast, it might just be the long legs, but she was always pretty much 5 to 10 feet ahead of me. She would say where to? And I would answer and then she would take off....like she actually knew where she was going. I was content to let her lead, when I would see she was about to miss a turn or make a wrong turn I would holler "Bo!" she would turn around and I would just point whatever way we needed to be heading, she would smile, nod and then make whatever correction to her direction. I let her do her thing this morning, she was on track, not my track, but that's ok cause I knew the two tracks would meet again, and I was able to get a random non posing picture of her.
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We met at the Land pavilion and got a CM to take a picture of us, we tried to do the selfie but we weren't able to get all of us and the sign in it.
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And of course Bo's creature spotting ability presented itself again.
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This is where I will end it for now. I will update our ride on Soarin later today.

 

[disneyaddicted]

I am so proud of you for this huge accomplishment! 3 Cheers to a healthier you!

Thank you, I definitely put weight on after I quit but I'm working on losing it now, I'm down 24 pounds since this past trip

How would you EVER recover?! It's a totally lethal condition!

There is no recovering from BBB sweat, prevention is your best defense.

You certainly did have a very long day. And you two crack me up as you have so much fun together. I agree, the pool is a great way to decompress and wind down before bed. Late night swims are da-bomb!

I couldn't imagine trying to do a trip of this magnitude with anyone other than my sister, it's so easy to tour with her.

We utilized the pool a lot on this trip.

I"m actually kinda excited to try AoA's food. It keeps getting pretty good reviews. I know one day we're planning on getting a big pizza to take to the pool. Hey, if you're bored or have extra time, visit me over on my thread. We're having a lot of fun over there. On the PTR forum.

AoA's food is really good, a lot of options, I think timing had a lot to do with it as well, the food was better during peak hours and I guess cause it was more fresh, not sitting under heat lamps ya know? Cause really my only issue was texture.
I have been peaking in on your PTR here and there, it moves so fast, you have a lot of readers. But I am enjoying it.

 

[BoBippity]

We drug our tired hind quarters to the bus. We had bus luck that day cause one was waiting for us. We had one thing on our minds at that time and it was food. We hadn't eaten since Tusker house. It's hard to eat when it's so hot out. More than anything I was craving a nice tall Disney refillable mug of Gold Canyon sweet tea with tons of ice, more ice than tea actually. So when the bus pulled up to AoA we headed to waves of flavor for some ok flavored grub. I will be honest, the food was tasty, the texture however was somewhat questionable at times. We ate there a handful of times throughout our stay and the only thing that still stands out in my mind was their pizza. I didn't get pizza that night, I know I ordered the burger and fries, Mayonnaise on the side, (for the fries of course.) I remember this because in my mind I was singing give me burger give me fries give me mayonnaise on the side to the tune of Metallicas Fuel for Fire song from their Reload album. What? Yes, I like Metallica. Bo ordered this.
[GALLERY=][/GALLERY]
She also ate some of my fries with the Mayo on the side, because neither of us can resist Pommes Frites mit Mayonnaise. We finished our meals, refilled our mugs again and set out for the long walk to our room. I don't know if I mentioned our park bags, I will fill you in on this. Past trips we just carried a small cross body bag, just big enough to hold the important stuff, camera, glasses, wallet, phone, lip gloss. It's easy to do when your trips have all taken place in cooler weather. This trip we had backpacks cause we also needed room for our fans, water bottles, ponchos and umbrella, I also started carrying extra socks. Bo....her bag was the bag of tricks, "Whenever she gets in a fix she reaches into her bag of tricks." (if you grew up with Saturday cartoons in the late 70's, you should know that song) you'll see some of those tricks she pulled out of her bag in upcoming posts. Anyway my point is, yes I have one...my point is that since we had these big ole bags we were able to store our refillable mugs in them and that saved us time and energy when we would return from the parks, we always just cut through the food court to get some libations. ( no Bo, I'm not using a thesaurus, I know that word) So libation in hand we headed to our room
[GALLERY=][/GALLERY]
Bo found this guy, never ever under estimate Bo's ability to find a frog or lizard[/QUOTE=]
Ty, I remember that meal, one of the CM's recommend I mix the Alfredo and the marinara...it was soooo good...but then, I was expecting it, you were not.

 

[BoBippity]

2 things Ty... first...i do like the frogs and lizards ( must be all those sons of mine). Second...was this Starbucks the scene of our epic Facebook battle Royale? Good times! Also in addition to my crazy mad coffee ordering skills...on days when we were both pooped...you'd sweeten the deal and offer to buy mine too. That was an offer I couldn't refuse. ( Read that with your best godfather accent)

 

[disneyaddicted]

2 things Ty... first...i do like the frogs and lizards ( must be all those sons of mine). Second...was this Starbucks the scene of our epic Facebook battle Royale? Good times! Also in addition to my crazy mad coffee ordering skills...on days when we were both pooped...you'd sweeten the deal and offer to buy mine too. That was an offer I couldn't refuse. ( Read that with your best godfather accent)

You do like frogs, no shame in that, I'm just completely amazed that you can spot them all the time no matter how well they are hidden.
And yes, this was the Starbucks where the epic battle took place, it happened at our second Starbucks visit of the day.

 

[BoBippity]

I suppose our audience of 2 will have to wait for all the details of our showdown..lucky me I know how it all goes down. I do have pretty awesome frog spotting skills, it's a gift! ( I reckon I may be one of the few that will go to Animal Kingdom and look for critters that aren't purposefully placed)

 

[disnic75]

I'm here lurking I always read and enjoy your reports. You guys are so witty and entertaining. Keep it coming!!

 

[disneyaddicted]

I'm here lurking I always read and enjoy your reports. You guys are so witty and entertaining. Keep it coming!!

Hi thank you for posting and letting us know you're here. I'm glad you like the TR. I'm all pumped to keep going. I was starting to feel like I didn't have very many readers. I'm hoping to get another update out tonight.

 

[Brittni__duh]

Hi there! My husband and I were down in WDW September 14th-21st 2015. I love reading trip reports from the same time. It was hot that week, wasn't it? My SIL and her family went down for Christmas and it was in the 80's on xmas day. They were all in tank tops and shorts. I couldn't imagine spending a xmas like that. Anyways, I look forward to reading the rest of your report!

 

[disneyaddicted]

[GALLERY=][/GALLERY]
This isn't really an update, I wanted to share this picture that Bo took, a whole group of people about to start their new adventures as CM's. Also, giggle giggle, look real close, it seems that one of the CM's is giving a newbie a welcome grope to the behind.

 

[disneyaddicted]

Hi there! My husband and I were down in WDW September 14th-21st 2015. I love reading trip reports from the same time. It was hot that week, wasn't it? My SIL and her family went down for Christmas and it was in the 80's on xmas day. They were all in tank tops and shorts. I couldn't imagine spending a xmas like that. Anyways, I look forward to reading the rest of your report!

Hi, I wonder if we passed each other in the parks at some point. Yes, it was so hot, we just made sure we stayed hydrated. I had gone to WDW in Dec 2010 and it was so cold I had to buy a winter coat while there, then I went Dec 2011 the weather was 70's and 60's at night. Then I went Dec 2013 and it was in the 90's. Disney weather is hit or miss. We are going again this December, I'm hoping for a repeat of 2011, that was perfect. Thank you for reading and posting.

 

[Brittni__duh]

Hi, I wonder if we passed each other in the parks at some point. Yes, it was so hot, we just made sure we stayed hydrated. I had gone to WDW in Dec 2010 and it was so cold I had to buy a winter coat while there, then I went Dec 2011 the weather was 70's and 60's at night. Then I went Dec 2013 and it was in the 90's. Disney weather is hit or miss. We are going again this December, I'm hoping for a repeat of 2011, that was perfect. Thank you for reading and posting.

This past trip was my first trip to WDW that wasn't in March. My parents always planned trips for my spring break when I was in school. The weather was definitely more pleasant in March but September wasn't unbearable. In fact, I'm planning another trip for September 2017. Hoping to make it to Food & Wine for the first time

 

[BoBippity]

Brittni_duh, food and wine festival was great! My favorite souvenir from our trip was the cookbook I bought at the food and wine festival. I pray your trip is all you hope it to be!

 

[disneyaddicted]

We were ready to soar. I like Soarin, it's a good ride, a great ride even, but it is not my favorite. At one time it was and I don't know what happened to change it. Don't get me wrong I love this ride, it's one of my favorites, it's just not my VERY favorite.
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The posted standby time was 60 minutes but we just scanned our bands and walked on in
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all the way up to the CM and then scanned our bands again and then around the corner, we were met with a tiny line but we were all in our ride positions within a few minutes.
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There were 2 teenage boys next to us, probably about 14 yrs. The one asked me if I had ever been on this before, he went on to say it was his first time and he was afraid of heights, Bo and I assured him that you don't really notice that you're lifted up, you get so engrossed in the screen and all the happenings.
We knew from where we were standing we would have a foot view, but just like we had told the young boy, you get caught up in the screen show that the feet disappear from view and really all you see is what's directly in front of you.
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We are all set to soar, but first let us take a selfie.
The ride didn't disappoint, it never does, I love the feeling that Disney creates, I do feel like I soar right up into the clouds, the wind in my hair, you can almost feel a mist when you first enter the clouds and then you just get sucked in, I could smell the orange groves but they must have run out of pine because I didn't smell it all, and trust me I was sniffing hard!!!!!
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When the ride was over I asked the boy what he thought, he said he liked it a lot.
I'm looking forward to our December trip this year to compare the new show to this one. Will it still have the smells? Will the music be the same? I love that music they play on it.
We had wanted to ride living with the land, there was a decent sized line (Seriously?) so we decided it would actually be cool to ride it right before our ADR at Garden grill that night and instead we went to The Living seas to help find Nemo.
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We saw this little guy eating an M&M, I heard a guest comment, "Wonder if that's Chip or Dale, hahahaha." I wanted to say, it's neither....cause it's a squirrel not a chipmunk, I didn't say it, I just thunk it. But C'mon, know your characters people cause other wise your joke is not funny and your name dropping makes you look ridiculous. That's right!!!! I know Chip and Dale for real.


The queue for this ride can be fun, it's a long walk to get to the ride which is not a bad thing because they offer you a lot to look at and do really well at creating a whole beach thing leading up to the under water thing, I just feel rushed if there are people behind me, I tell them go ahead of me and they look at me like I'm dumb, I just want pictures, I'm a scrap booker, it's the law that I take pictures, plus Bo and I need to have thousands of pictures to choose from when we are on our traditional scrap book retreat at the cabin.
BO working on her Scrap book album this past February.

We boarded our clam for the under water adventure of looking for Nemo, it's hard to take pictures on this ride, you can't use a flash of course, and neither of us really know how to work our cameras so all the pictures were blurry.
[/URL[URL=http://s177.photobucket.com/user/Disneyaddicted/media/Disboards/Epcot%20day%204/DSCN5707.jpg.html]
it's a cute ride, we both liked it but it wasn't something we felt we needed to do again that trip. we headed over to get a few pictures at the coolest photo opps in the Living Seas.[/URL]http://s177.photobucket.com/user/Disneyaddicted/media/Disboards/Epcot day 4/DSCN5713.jpg.html
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Being chomped on by a shark? First let me get a selfie, smile Bo, this will look so good in your album.

I'm going to confess something here, I was looking back through these pictures and I was like, I don't remember that shark having his nostril pierced...duh, it's a hook.
We had a FP for Turtle talk with Crush for later in the trip but since we were already there we just thought why not now. The show was going to be letting people in soon so we staked our place. There was a man who had come in looking confused, he said to the CM that he had a "reservation" for the next show, she told him ok scan your band, the doors will be opening soon. He still looked confused, "Me and my whole family have a reservation for the next show" he shows her his phone, so I figured out by that he had a FP, the CM nodded, ok they will need to scan their bands right here and the doors will open soon. He looked around the room. "Well who are all these people? What are they waiting for?" The CM told him that they were also waiting for the show. "No, he said, I reserved this time for me and my family." She explained how FP works, he did not understand he kept shaking his head no and showing her his phone. He almost looked disgusted when he realized that he would have to share the theater with the rest of us. Poor guy, I kept wondering if when he made his "Reservations" for each day and attractions if he really thought that his family would be the only ones allowed during that time. While all of this was going on people were filing in and the place was packed, he said he wasn't going to wait in a crowd after he reserved his time and then he left. I was trying to point all of this out to Bo but she was taking pictures and not paying attention, imagine that. The doors open and people slowly flooded in, it was tame until we actually got into the theater then it was game on and we got rushed, I got shoved hard from behind and banged my knee on the corner of one of the benches, it hurt bad, it throbbed, I cried, (quietly, just tears no noise) partly cause of pain but mostly because it made me mad that people would behave like that. The show started and I shook it off and got back into Disney mode. I love this show, it was my 3rd time going to it, (Bo's first) it's never the same because the questions that the kids ask are always different, well for the most part, usually the questions are along the lines of, what do you eat? Do you sleep in the water or on the beach? YA know, cute kid questions, that is until Crush called on the little girl in the yellow shell, "What's your question Dudette?" The cute doll asked "How much have Sea Turtles evolved over the past hundred years in order to adapt to environmental changes?" Only she used bigger words and stuff, I'm not kidding. Crush got this blank look on his face, his mouth hanging open, he looked around a bit and then said, "Uuuummmm, purple?" "Next question please." The place erupted in laughter. To this day if I don't know the answer to a question I just say "Purple." I love crush, Bo has her frogs, I love my turtle. Land or sea, turtles intrigue me.

The above picture of Crush was borrowed, we did not take this picture

This one we did take, you can see why I needed to borrow a picture off photobucket, we seriously need to learn how to use our cameras before our next trip.
I love Turtle Talk with Crush, it's a must do, some people think it's only fun for kids, not true. Go see it if you haven't. When the show was over we trekked back around to the aquarium and watched the sharks for a while.



Being in a darkened area for such a long period of time was making me sleepy, we went and looked at the manatees upstairs and down stairs we said goodbye to the under sea life and headed back out into the bright sun, the hot\humid outside part of Epcot. It was so bright and sunglasses were a must even if they did make my eyes sweat.




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[disneyaddicted]

This past trip was my first trip to WDW that wasn't in March. My parents always planned trips for my spring break when I was in school. The weather was definitely more pleasant in March but September wasn't unbearable. In fact, I'm planning another trip for September 2017. Hoping to make it to Food & Wine for the first time

I went once in April, Once in September and 4 times in December, I like December best because of the cooler weather but mostly because I love Christmas and Disney is amazing with all their decorations. I don't know if I would ever do September again, I know Bo and I are planning to go in November sometime in the future.

Brittni_duh, food and wine festival was great! My favorite souvenir from our trip was the cookbook I bought at the food and wine festival. I pray your trip is all you hope it to be!

I think the only souvenir I bought from Food & Wine Festival was that shirt, I've worn it twice, remember I bought it kind of big? Well now it's too big, but it's comfy. I still have that plate/cup holder thing too, it wasn't as convenient as I thought it would be.

 

[BoBippity]

Ty, I think the next time we get together, we should make some stuff from the cookbook...scrap, eat and be merry! Maybe try some stuff we didn't get to at food and wine.

 

[Glee1973]

Following along! My sister and I leave in November for my 30th bday trip.

 

[BoBippity]

Following along! My sister and I leave in November for my 30th bday trip.

How exciting and Happy Birthday too!